Money Shot (2 page)

Not a pretty face, exactly, but certainly one that deserved a second look. The discerning man might go back for a third. It was all those sharp edges and uncompromising slants against the lush oasis of that mouth, he thought. The contrast or something. It made a guy want to do stupid things. Rash things. Hot, wet, sweaty things, for sure.

“Hoo, boy,” Einar murmured. “Dibs.”

Fuck, Rush thought. For a guy who never stood when he could sit—or hell, lie down—Einar could move when it counted.

SECRET SERVICE Agent Maria “Goose” di Guzman had hardly cleared the door of the little tea shop when Rush Guthrie himself—because who else could it be?—strode forward and engulfed her hand in a hearty grip.

“Welcome to Mishkwa,” he boomed, his voice radio-announcer cheerful, his eyes Caribbean blue. Goose blinked. Good Lord. His file hadn’t included a recent photo—a convention designed to protect behind-enemy-lines types against intel leaks—but it had included a basic physical description: six three, blue/blond, approximately 190. Based on that, she’d been ready for the Captain American type, but this guy was a recruiting poster come to life. She wondered if the military was still kicking itself over losing him.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Well now, that depends.” She gave him a smile with just a hint of flirt around the edges. Based on the smug interest in those clear blue eyes, Ranger Guthrie sort of dug the glamazon type. Maybe not as much as he dug himself, but enough. A surprising number of men did. But yard-wide shoulders, thick hair the color of fresh butter and a jaw that could make Superman himself feel weak-chinned did not necessarily translate into the confidence to deal well with the double whammy of a tall girl and her badge. Thus the little bit of flirt-insurance. Flattery worked on everybody.

“On?”

“I’m looking for somebody,” she said.

He stepped just close enough to edge into her personal space, and grinned down at her with very white teeth. “Dare I hope you’ve found him?”

Goose kept her smile on high beam. “Depends.” She freed her hand from his and produced the badge she’d stashed in the Prada purse she’d treated herself to last Christmas. “Special Agent Maria di Guzman,” she said. “Secret Service. Ranger Rush Guthrie?”

Captain America shook his head and stepped closer yet. Close enough that she could smell his breath mint and the chewing tobacco it was trying to cover. “Now, what would you want with my cousin when all the man you need is right here?”

She tipped her head and gave him a curious look. “You’re one of those guys who likes getting arrested by girl cops, aren’t you?”

He gave her a lingering once-over. “I’d try anything once.”

She patted his arm. “I bet you would.” She tried hard to make it sound like a compliment. “You could start by directing me to Ranger Guthrie.”

“I’m Ranger Guthrie.”

She looked past Captain America for the first time and met a pair of eyes so pale she couldn’t tell if they were blue or gray. The color hardly mattered. Not compared with the intense attention in them, and the wary spark it sent dancing all the way down her body to her half-frozen toes. If she hadn’t been purposely holding her ground against his cousin’s hokey moves, the impact might have knocked her back a step. Possibly two.

She glanced between the men. Ranger Guthrie was maybe two or three inches taller than Captain America, but a good twenty pounds lighter. Not that he was skinny. Hardly. He just had the lean, wiry build of a distance runner rather than his cousin’s gym-toned muscle mass. He lacked his cousin’s classic looks, too, with hair clipped so brutally short she could only speculate about its color. It was a fashion choice that did nothing to soften the bones pressing harsh and sharp against wind-touched skin.

But where his pretty cousin had sailed forward with supreme confidence toward the stranger at the door, this guy had put his body in front of the only other occupants of the shop—women, Goose suspected. And unless she was dreadfully mistaken—which she almost never was—his fingers were hooked casually into a pocket that held a weapon.

Sound and fury, she thought looking back at Captain America. No mistaking which cousin was which.

“Good afternoon, Ranger Guthrie,” she said. She sent him a friendly smile but didn’t move in for the handshake. She wasn’t about to crowd a guy with his particular skill set.

“Agent di Guzman.”

“May I speak with you?”

“Regarding?”

God, that voice. It was low, slow and a little rusty, like he’d just woken up, or maybe hadn’t used it in a while. She’d bet on the second scenario, though it was the first that caught her imagination. An image of him waking up hijacked her mind’s eye—all those efficient muscles and long limbs tangled up in some plain white sheets, the sleep in his gray eyes giving way to that powerful focus.

Another spark shot through her body, but this one wasn’t wary. It was all heat, and it didn’t make it to her toes. It detoured to places best left unmentioned and set up a nice little glow there. A bolt of fear, pure and reflexive, chased it down. Snuffed it out before it did anything stupid, like bloom into actual desire.

Because desire, Goose knew, was not her friend. It ran through her character like a fault line—thin, deep and potentially catastrophic. It could lie dormant for years, but then, out of nowhere, she would simply
want
. Want with a passion that drove her beyond reason, limits or perspective. A passion that left her heedless. Unpredictable. Uncontrolled.

Dangerous.

She’d indulged that passion exactly once, and though she’d survived, others had not. The experience had marked her. Defined her. At this point, resisting desire was no harder than putting on her badge, firing up her laptop or straightening her hair. Just one more thing she did every day that made her who she was.

Which was not a woman who indulged her weaknesses. Not here, not now, not with this man. Not ever.

She put a hand to the smooth sweep of her hair. The calm, orderly fall of it reassured her.

“I’d rather speak with you in private,” she finally said.

Guthrie jumped as if pinched, then stepped aside to reveal a tall woman in her midsixties. She favored vibrant jewel tones, a choice Goose approved given the dramatic silver of her hair. A startlingly sweet smile transformed the patrician sternness of her face as she stepped forward.

“Agent di Guzman, is it?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Goose said.

“I’m Lila.”

“As in Mother Lila’s Tea Shop?”

“The very one.” Lila threaded her arm through Ranger Guthrie’s and beamed at Goose. “You’ll have to forgive my nephew here. His job keeps him from civilization most of the winter. He’s lost the habit of polite conversation.” She took Goose’s elbow in her other hand and turned them both toward a little wire-legged table in the bay window that framed a heartbreaking sweep of Lake Superior’s jagged beauty. “You just have a seat right here. Yarrow will bring you a nice hot cup of tea and Rush”—she nudged the silent ranger into the chair opposite her—“will remember his manners shortly, I’m sure.”

Lila bustled toward the counter, snapping her ringed fingers at the teenage Goth queen Goose was startled to find sitting at the register. Good Lord, she thought. How many people had Guthrie been hiding behind those broad shoulders?

“Yarrow!” Lila sang out. “Two cups of Lady Grey at table five, please!”

Captain America stopped at the table’s edge on his way to the door. “See you around, Maria.”

She sincerely hoped not, but sent him a smile anyway. “Nice meeting you.”

He turned to his cousin. “I’m out of pocket for a few days starting tomorrow morning,” he said. “Some fat cats from Winnipeg are having a conference down on Mackinac and can’t be bothered to drive. Keep an eye on the girls, will you?”

“Feed still in the kitchen?”

“Yep.”

“Will do.”

Goose watched him saunter out the door, jacket unzipped, curls dancing in the bitter wind. “Your cousin, was it?”

“Einar.”

“Guy’s going to freeze to death going out like that.” She sent Guthrie an amused half smile. “Look pretty doing it, though.”

He shot a dubious glance at her cranberry wool beret. “Guess you’d know.”

Okay, so no common ground poking fun at the ridiculous cousin. She touched her hat—her
adorable
hat—and gave a self-deprecating chuckle. “I would, actually. It if gets much colder than this, I might have to consider earflaps.” She shuddered dramatically.

“It does.”

She paused, backtracked. “Does what?”

“Get colder.”

“Oh.” She looked into those pale eyes, saw not a hint of humor. She tried again. “Surely that’s not possible. It’s already ridiculous out there. I think I freezer-burned my lungs just walking here from the ferry dock. How much colder could it get?”

He gave her a long, steady look. “Much.”

Irritation pressed in on her. What, was there some kind of word rationing in effect on Mishkwa she hadn’t been informed of? A law against small talk? Or had Guthrie simply ceded his lifetime supply of words to his chatty cousin? She swallowed a few acidic words of her own—sure to give her heartburn later—and summoned up her best look of laughing chagrin.

“So. Earflaps? Really?”

Pause. “Depends.”

“On?” She smiled around gritted teeth.

“You.”

She sighed. “Not one for small talk, are you, Ranger Guthrie?”

“I suck at it.”

She shook her head solemnly. “Surely not.”

A corner of his mouth flickered, like maybe he wanted to smile but didn’t quite remember how. “So how about we skip it and you just tell me what you’re doing here?”

“Fair enough.” She swung her legs to the side—there wasn’t much room for them under the teeny table—and crossed them. She took a moment to admire the supple leather boots that encased her calves like a butter-soft second skin until they disappeared into the dark wool of her plaid wrap skirt. So, she noted with a sharp satisfaction, did Ranger Guthrie. Maybe he hated her hat but he didn’t mind her boots so much. Or the legs inside them.

“How about you tell me why a guy with a gun in his pocket would want to stab the governor with a flaming pitchfork?”

A SINGLE eyebrow crept up the barest fraction of an inch, the first sign she’d surprised him. “This is about that?”

“If by
that
you mean the fact that you’re the founding member of a registered political party whose platform includes a stated intention to stab the sitting governor with a flaming pitchfork, then yes.” She gave him a friendly smile. “This is about that.”

“Huh.”

“You can’t be surprised that the Secret Service has a few questions.” Goose let a beat of silence pass, then felt compelled to point out the obvious. “Questions you haven’t actually answered yet.”

More silence. She suppressed a sigh. “Ranger Guthrie? Why would a man with a gun in his pocket want to stab somebody with a flaming pitchfork?”

“I don’t,” Guthrie said finally.

Goose refrained from an eye roll, but it was a near thing. Two words? Really? That was the best he could do? “Don’t what? Have a gun in your pocket?” she asked. “Or want to stab the governor with a flaming pitchfork?”

“The pitchfork thing.”

“Then you won’t mind explaining to me how you came to be the founder and only member of a political party whose platform consists solely of a promise to do so.”

Goth Girl—Yarrow, Goose reminded herself—appeared at the table in the speculative silence that followed. She was all pale skin, gorgeous bones and angry black eyeliner, with enough need-fueled revolt hanging overhead to make Goose wonder if Marilyn Manson and Winona Ryder had had a drunken fling one night and accidentally reproduced. She plunked two steaming teacups down in front of them with a much-maligned sigh.

Goose smiled at her. “Thanks, Yarrow.”

Yarrow blinked at being name-checked by a stranger. Maybe at being name-checked at all. An unexpected twinge of compassion for the kid rolled over her. She remembered only too well being old enough to recognize what a burden you were but too young to do anything about it. She herself had never gone in for piercings/tattoos/heavy makeup, but she understood why kids did. Making your outside ugly was a hell of a lot easier than making your inside pretty, and teenagers did like things to match.

Yarrow opted for an eye roll over the more traditional “you’re welcome,” prompting Goose to wonder if she’d been taking lessons in verbal economy from Ranger Guthrie. The girl stomped off to her stool behind the register and Goose turned back to her erstwhile companion.

“So. Ranger Guthrie. You were saying?”

Another flicker of almost-smile. Damn, she was on a roll. “Rush.”

“Rush.”

“Excuse me?”

“Rush.” He paused, then clarified. “It’s my name.”

“I know,” she said, at sea. “You want me to use it?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because that was nice.”

She waited for an explanation. None arrived. She sighed. “What was nice?”

“What you did for my cousin just now.”

“Einar?”

“Yarrow.”

“She’s your cousin, too?” Goose blinked. “Goodness. Are you related to everybody on this island?”

“No.”

She touched the headache brewing at her nape. “Are you always this literal, Ranger Guthrie?”

“Rush.”

“Are you always this literal,
Rush
?”

“Yes. I’m taciturn, irritating and pessimistic, too.”

She gave him wide, disbelieving eyes. “No.”

His gaze warmed abruptly, and kindled a corresponding—and alarming—warmth in her stomach. “I don’t count kindness among my particular gifts, but I know it—and respect it—when I see it in others. Particularly in situations when there’s nothing to be gained by it.”